Wedding Weekend

What a beautiful day it was.  Let me share some of the day...

The day began quite early for my little family as the church parking lot needed to be transformed into a beautiful reception the morning of the wedding!  Since the ceremony began at 11 am, this was quite the undertaking-- but it turned out beautifully... as you shall see :)

The ceremony was also beautiful.  I enjoyed the parts that I was able to focus on... keeping the kids quiet proved to be a bit of a challenge.  Sorry to all those who couldn't hear Rosanna's vows over Caleb screaming "Mommy wrecked my picture!!"

The kiss.

It was so fun to walk out of the church into a beautiful Vancouver morning hearing the church bells ringing.  Beautiful.

Immediately after the ceremony all the families made their way to the gardens for pictures.  I just LOVE this picture because I think it captures the couple so well.  Beautiful, wonderful Rosanna... and fun loving James.  I think he was laughing here because I told the photographer that I could play the role of "bossypants" if she needed help corralling the troops.

Eme... it was a non-nap day for this little lady.  She just can't seem to settle down to nap when there is so  many things to look at.  And since we were in Vancouver for the ENTIRE day... naps did not come easily for her.  But thankfully she didn't seem to mind all that much...

Then the picture taking began... here's Grandma and Grandpa with their grandkids... still clean and relatively happy.

My little family.  My dress wasn't really that short... bad decision to sit down for the family photo Elissa... bad decision.

James and Rosanna have their hands full in this picture :)

Sisters.

Two REALLY cute little ladies.  I just loved their matching dresses... and I think they did too.

And now... onto the reception!  Somewhere along the way I managed to hijack the decorating plans-- I just couldn't stay out of it... wedding decorations are way to much fun to be a part of!  And at one point Rosanna gave in a told me I could be "head chief" :)  As I mentioned before... all of the decorating had to take place in the morning before the ceremony.  Since we had to drive into Vancouver, it meant that I got up at 5:30 to get  myself and the family out the door for 7:00 am.  We had 2 hours to set up, so every moment was needed.  Here are a few of the details...

I mentioned something about chalkboards in my last post... I ended up making 19 chalkboards of all different sizes to label the reserved tables, the beverage stations, and the entrance of the tent (as you saw in the first picture)  Making the actual chalkboards wasn't a lot of work (just pop out the glass, whip out some spray paint if the finish is ugly, cut out pieces of hardboard the same size of frame, paint with chalkboard paint... and you're done!) the biggest challenge was scouring MCC for cute pictures frames with two kids in tow.  Thank goodness for the double stroller.  I know that I looked like a bit of a crazy person in there... digging through bins, ignoring my pleading children, and piling the stroller with frames of all shapes and sizes (you really should have seen my trying to get out the door) but it was worth it!  Did I mention all the frames were 50% off that day?

I even had enough bigger ones for the lemonades stands.  How cute is that pink lemonade?!

The next major decoration undertaking was the poms.  Over the past few weeks Rosanna and I purchased pretty much all the pink tissue paper we could find in every walmart in the lower mainland.  Well, maybe not every walmart... but close :)  We had three memorable pom making nights and made a ton of cute pink and white poufs to hang from the ceiling of the tent.  This wedding had a tight decor budget... so for under a dollar a pom, they made a big impact for not a lot of money!

Special thanks to Doug and our other tall friend-- they did an exceptional job of hanging them from the ceiling of the tent... completed within the 2 hour time constraint... amazing!

Rosanna's Mom collected a ton of gorgeous lace table cloths for the reception in all different sizes, colors of white and cream, and in varying designs.  They looked AMAZING!  Totally granny glam... if you ask me!  And one of Rosanna's friends is a floral arranging genius... she made beautiful arrangements in Mason jars.  They looked amazing.

Between my friend Andrianne and I we had quite the assortment of potted plants, window frames, baskets, crates, galvanized buckets and such.  We carted it all into Vancouver and set up some cute little vignettes around the tents.

 Apparently James is a bit of a social butterfly when it comes to large gatherings... so a few people from the church thought it would be helpful to chain him to his seat so that he was forced to eat with his new bride.  They gave Rosanna the key... of course. After some time she had compassion on her new husband and set him free to mingle with the crowd...

The party was quite informal... but there was a short program with speeches and this awesome rap number James' nieces and nephews pulled out...

There were LOTS of kids at the party... so the reception needed to be kid friendly.  Every parking lot reception needed sidewalk chalk... right?

Remember the boys and their clean outfits during photos?  Not anymore...

The tables with kids were not covered in lace table cloths like the others... nope.  Instead they were covered in paper and filled with jars of crayons and coloring pages (I may have even spotted a few Canucks coloring pages in there too... :)

What a beautiful day.  The day was meant to acknowledge the goodness of the Lord... and that couldn't have been more evident in the music, the ceremony, the supportive families surrounding the couple, the speeches, and the smiles and joy on the faces of the bride and groom.  Thank you Lord for your faithfulness in Rosanna's life and your unfailing love!

After a LONG day, the kids finally gave up the fight.  Eme never falls asleep in someone's arms, but Doug managed to win this time...

And about 30 seconds after leaving for home, this was the scene in the backseat of our car...

We arrived home just in time to watch the hockey game :)  

Hope you all enjoyed this little glimpse into the beautiful day!